Archive for October 11th, 2010

by ANGELA HATTON

Greetings from Columbia! The city is a busy college town with hip shops and trendy restaurants, but outside the city the rolling farmland isn’t that much different from western Kentucky. And the local NPR station, KBIA’s call letters? 91.3. I’m right at home.

Tomorrow is the Food, Fuel, and Society Conference. There’s still time to send me some questions about biofuel and immigrant farm labor. For example, one thing I’ve heard so far is that E-85 fuel seems to burn faster than traditional gasoline. So, the question is are ethanol-makers are aware of that, and are other biofuels (like switchgrass) better as gasoline replacements?

P. S. If you’re ever in Columbia, check out India House for some good Indian food in generous portions.

A trio of violin, clarinet and piano faculty of Middle Tennessee State University presents a recital tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in Performing Arts Hall of Doyle Fine Arts Building at Murray State. Hear works by Khatchaturian, Chopin, and Ravel.

The American Red Cross collects blood tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Wal-Mart in Murray. Donors receive a Red Cross Racing camo hat as supplies last. Schedule an appointment in advance at redcrossblood.org.

Mayfield Elementary School hosts a program by Cyber Safety Expert Rob Nickell tomorrow at 6 p.m. It’s free for the community to learn more about technology use, on-line safety, especially regarding children using the web.

Baby Signs Workshops start this evening at 5:30 at Murray State, Room 2203 Alexander Hall. Learn the how to’s of teaching babies to sign through games, songs, and activities. Babies join the third and following classes. Call 270-809-4150. A Ballroom Dance class starts tomorrow, meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 p.m. through December.

by ANGELA HATTON

Today I’ll be celebrating Columbus Day by driving to Columbia, Missouri, for the Food, Fuel, and Society Conference at University of Missouri, Columbia’s Reynolds Institute for Journalism. Now that’s a mouthful.

Ira Flatow, the host of NPR’s Science Friday is the featured guest speaker at tomorrow’s conference. The focus will be better practices in agriculture reporting. It’s not just plowing and planting, people. I’ll be talking to other reporters, farmers, professors, and analysts. And you can participate too. Here’s how:

I’ll be attending two panel discussions. One on bio-fuels, and the other on immigrant farm labor. If you’ve got a question you’d like me to ask, leave it as a comment at the bottom of this post.

To find out more about what’s new in the world of agriculture, visit Harvest Public Media’s Facebook page. You can follow them on Twitter too.

Local winery owners are in support of a bill moving through the Kentucky Legislature to allow them to distill wine waste products to create brandy and other so called fortified wines.The Kentucky House approved the bill this week.

The Hopkinsville International Festival, now in its sixth year, showcases some of the cultural diversity in the region. Featuring a global village, performance on two stages, food, lectures, language courses and more, it's a weekend that brings people together in an interactive nature that allows folks to engage, says event coordinators Nikki Radford an […]

A ceremony was held Tuesday at the state Capitol Rotunda in recognition of Kentucky’s first place honor in Site Selection Magazine's Governor's Cup rankings. The Commonwealth was awarded top prize for new and expanded industry activity per capita over the last year.

Major telephone companies won’t have to offer basic landline service to residents in the 15 largest markets in the state if Gov. Steve Beshear signs a bill that passed the state Senate on Monday.The so-called AT&T deregulation bill removes a requirement that “carriers of last resort” offer packages with 911 calling, operator service and unlimited local c […]

Murray State President Bob Davies visited the WKMS studios for the latest in a series of monthly conversations on the state of the university. He spoke with Chad Lampe on implementing MSU’s upcoming campus-wide tobacco ban, his thoughts on a performance funding for higher education institutions in Kentucky and other topics from last week’s Board of Regents m […]

The new season of TED Radio Hour begins this Saturday morning on WKMS. The program, broadcast around the world, brings you TED Talks from experts on a given theme, while host Guy Raz and his guests further explore the subject. Past episodes have ranged from topics like how we love and what we fear to the source of creativity and the end of privacy. Raz and T […]

Two western Kentucky counties have been designated Work Ready Communities In-Progress. Governor Steve Beshear announced today that community, business, education, workforce, and economic development leaders from each county are developing their workforce by meeting education, skill, and digital literacy benchmarks.